Local Myth, Man-Boob Billboard & Walking For Farm Animals

It turns out that omnivorous locavores may be bending over backwards for no reason if their goals are environmental. Read the Forbes article that takes the meat out of the locavore argument and puts the emphasis right back on the largest single contributor to greenhouse gas emissions: meat and dairy. But we know that already, right? There’s nothing green about local bacon aside from the greenwashing in which it’s packaged. It’s almost as bad as the “humane slaughter” myth.

Sometimes all you need is a simple, organic cotton tee in a few colors to take your wardrobe to the next level. Logos, silkscreen graphics and band names can distract from the main attraction: you. Alternative Apparel has crew neck and v-neck tees in every damn color.

PETA recently took some heat for asking us to save some whales - from blubber. Women went nuts when PETA put up a billboard saying that adopting a vegetarian diet can lead to weight loss, and now they are going after the guys! So what do you think? Offensive or crafty?

Meatloaf is not just for meat-eaters. With 33g of protein per serving, Field Roast’s Classic Meat Loaf packs some serious muscle. Order it online or check your local retailer.

Walk like a man. We often hear about all the things we should do “like men“. But now, you can really walk like a man, by raising money to benefit Farm Sanctuary! Click HERE to see all the walk dates and locations.

To raise funds in person, please use the Offline Donation Form. You’ll need to bring the completed form and any donations with you the day of the Walk. If you can’t make it and want to sponsor someone, like our friend Gretchen or Dave, or simply donate, please do that too!

Thanks to our friend Ari, who is often a guest columnist on GGA, and who owns the snarky, yummy vegan, soy-candle company A Scent of Scandal forwarded locavore and man-boob articles.

EMPTY V: The Legendary John Norris

John Norris might be one of the most recognizable faces to anyone who liked music during the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s. John had one of the longest-running VJ careers on MTV, and has incredible perspective on where we stand concerning pop-culture. His environmentalism, veganism, and massive, glitter-crusted Rolodex of important musicians spanning a quarter-century make his perspectives worth considering. I sat down with John recently at the Jivamukti Cafe in NYC to talk about the state of mass media, music, and his personal politics.

Sweet Onion-Petso Pasta & Garlic Sauteed Spinach

There are so many incarnations of pesto – I thought this sweeter, creamier pesto was satisfying and indulgent, and went perfectly with some simple, garlic sauteed spinach. As usual, I recommend getting your ingredients organic and as local as possible!

WHAT YOU’LL NEED (serves 2):

pesto pasta

• 1.5 cups fresh basil leaves
• 2 cups brown rice pasta
• 2 Tbs raw cashew butter (or 1/4 cup raw cashews)
• 1/4 cup unsweetened almond milk
• 1/2 large yellow onion
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1/4 cup white wine
• 1 Tbs olive oil
• 1 Tbs nutritional yeast
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp black pepper

spinach

• 3 cups fresh spinach
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 Tbs olive oil

DIRECTIONS

1. Chop the onion, crush 2 cloves of garlic, and bring a large pan to medium heat, and saute them in 1 Tbs olive oil until golden.
2. Pour in the wine and let the liquid reduce for about 5 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, put the basil, cashew butter, almond milk, nutritional yeast, salt, and pepper in a blender and blend until smooth.
4. Add the sauteed onions and blend. Set aside the pesto.
5. Boil the pasta until tender, and strain.
6. Pour the pesto onto the pasta and mix.
7. For the spinach, saute for 3 or 4 minutes on medium heat (in the same unwashed skillet you used for the onions) with the garlic and olive oil.
8. Use basil leaves for garnish, top with some black pepper and nutritional yeast, and serve!

Savory Summer Roll with Cuke Salad

This meal was easy to prepare and combines a refreshing, crisp salad of cukes, carrots, cilantro and onion with a savory, warm roll stuffed with sauteed onions, kale, rice-burger and roasted cashews. Best of all, it’s gluten-free and soy-free!

WHAT YOU’LL NEED (serves 4):

Salad:

• 1 large cucumber
• 2 large carrots
• 1/2 bunch of cilantro
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 red onion
• 2 tbs spicy mustard
• 4 tbs apple cider vinegar
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 1 tbs agave (or preferred sweetener)

Roll:

• 4 sheets of rice paper
• 1 bunch of lacinato kale (aka Dinosaur Kale)
• 1 large spanish onion
• 2 cloves garlic
• 2 rice burger patties
• 1/4 cup raw cashews
• 1 tbs vegetable oil, for sauteing
• 1tbs Italian dressing
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp nutritional yeast

DIRECTIONS:

Salad:

1. Cut the cucumber in half, longways -  and then slice into half-coins about 1/2-in. thick.
2. Dice the cilantro, red onion and garlic.
3. Slice the carrots into think coins.
4. Combine all ingredients in a mixing bowl, and add the vinegar, agave, salt, pepper and mustard.
5. Mix well and set aside to marinade while you prepare the rolls.

Rolls:

1. Bring a medium pot of salted water to a boil.
2. Bring a skillet to medium heat, and add the veg oil.
3. Cut very ends of the kale off (just 1 inch) and then cut the bunch in half. Place it in the hot water.
4. Boil the kale only for 1 minute, because we still want it to be slightly crisp. remove the kale from the water but SAVE THE WARM WATER and set both aside.
5. Chop the Spanish onion into rounds about 1/4-in. thick and add place in the skillet.
6. Dice the garlic, and burger patties and place in the skillet. Add the cashews, but set a few aside for garnish.
7. Pour over the Italian dressing, and let everything cook over medium heat until golden brown.
8. While step 7 is sauteing, dip your rice paper in he warm water. It will quickly become soft and elastic.
9. On a cutting board or working surface, lay out the rice papers and evenly divide the kale and the sauteed combo onto them.
10. Roll them up, plate and sprinkle nutritional yeast and the remaining cashews on top. Scoop some Cucumber salad for each plate and serve side-by-side.

Fall Back in Style

Matt & Nat never disappoints. The new canvas collection is incredibly handsome, and made from recycled soda bottles, and recycled faux-suede lining. Better yet,  you can win one of these bags! Email Matt & Nat at blog@mattandnat.com before August 30^th at midnight and tell them what MATT & NAT means to you in 250 words, the best men’s and women’s letters will win one of our new Fall 09 handbags.

Steve Alan presents some nice, basic, organic shirts. We love the black and white, single needle check shirt!

These tapered organic cotton pants, slouch pants, and shirts from the Australian company, Bassike are not for the faint of heart. But those gents that have a love for cutting-edge trends, check these out!

Arn Mercantile offers up an organic Peruvian cotton “chore jacket” and some comfy pullovers.

The Japanese company, Kato uses organic cotton from Zimbabwe to make these jackets and shirts.

EAT LIKE A MAN.

I just finished devouring a plate of char-lined, grilled sweet corn smothered with pico de gallo oil, mashed herbed potatoes with wild mushroom gravy, and grilled apple-sage grain-sausage kebabs with shallots, apple cubes, zucchini and smokey maple barbecue sauce. The protein, vitamins and minerals, carbohydrates and phytochemicals are all  surging through my bloodstream, replenishing, building muscle, and sustaining my bones, organs and various tissues – especially the defining male appendage that requires clear, healthy veins and arteries to stand at attention. This is not enough, however, to keep me from being emasculated by my meal.

Growing up, and even as adults, we are often told to do certain things “like men”. Be a man! Act like a man! This phenomenon can basically be summarized as a call to toughen up, hide or mask any sort of sensitivity, and show no signs of weakness. I’ve seen a father reprimand his son for crying over a scraped knee, “Stop crying! Be a man!” I’ve heard the story of a friend who, at six years old, stood sobbing, finger on the trigger, as his father whispered coldly in his ear “Just shoot the goddamn deer. Don’t you wanna be a man?” Stoicism – that invaluable Greek paragon of virtue, could be one of the most sought-after states of existence for the civilized man. Unaffected, unreadable – perpetually poker-faced and methodically effective. And so we must “eat like men“, too.

“Doing it like rabbits” flatters a man’s virility, yet eating a diet that supports that same rabbit’s virility is lampooned.

How do rabbits eat? They carefully chew Vegetation. Strangely, no man scoffs at being compared to a rabbit when it comes to sex. “Doing it like rabbits” flatters a man’s virility, yet eating a diet that supports that same rabbit’s virility is lampooned. Instead, we consume entire animals with superstitious hopes of appropriating their strengths. The cover of September 2009′s Esquire Magazine proclaims “Eat Like A Man” and leads to a  sixteen-page cover-story entitled “How Men Eat”. It is a total meat-fest. A cheesy, eggy, frat party wrapped in bacon and bathed in blood. From Coca-Cola Brined Chicken to a three-meat-plus-bones gravy, and even to Jujubes:

“People Whine about some of them being made from dead horses… but they don’t know the Jujube eater’s darkest secret: By consuming dead horses we’re taking their power and virility and making it our own. Eating Jujubes is like eating powdered rhino horn or seal penis without any of the messy sociopolitical ramifications or bureaucratic hassle. Look! It’s just candy…. a candy that can be eaten in pin-drop quiet… without recrimination from wives or healthniks… We’ll eat our jujubes…in determined silence, growing ever stronger, until one day we will rise with the thunder of a thousand of those same dead horses, our bellies hard-packed with their souls and gelatin and out teeth stained by their blood, and we will trample your pesticide-free fields, an army of raging stallions once again. – Chris Jones “The Only Candy A Man Should Eat” Esquire Magazine Sept 2009

So many men are afraid of being seen as compassionate. Because, on a deep level, it’s logic and objectivism that are truly put at risk by emotion – and thus, control itself. At least, this is what is conventionally perceived. Emotions are a far cry from being logical – they can’t be measured or mapped. There is no emotional stock market or well-being index; how would one measure compassion, love, hatred or indifference? As for our food, animals can not be seen by most men as sentient beings – they are units of production; being such they able to be controlled and manipulated, stripped of identity, wholly consumed.

“Vegetarianism may occupy the moral high ground, but among men it’s regarded as, if not a girl thing, then at least a girlie thing — an anemic regimen for sensitive souls subsisting on rabbit food and tofurkey. Meanwhile, meat eating persists as a badge of masculinity, as if muscle contained a generous helping of testosterone, with the aggression required to slay a mammal working its way up the food chain” – Holly Brubach New York Times Blog, 9/3/2008

Is masculinity a roadblock to sustainability? Compassion, mercy, empathy and the like are all red flags, warning others that you cave in under the weight of empathy.  Following through and getting the job done are put at serious risk when emotions are added into the equation.  Men so often strive to be emotionless in this culture – because a man’s worth is measured by his ability to get the job done. Shoot the animal. Bring home the bread. Launch the missle. Cut open the cat’s head to observe, objectively, the workings therein. Of course women also participate in these activities – on a smaller scale – but living in a patriarchal culture places the source of power in the traditional definitions of masculinity. Few would argue that the stereotype of women as being more in touch with emotions is based in total fallacy, and few would argue that feminists fight incredibly against the discriminatory belief that emotion is a detriment to effectiveness.

Mean eat power. They eat the things that they hope to be: muscle. It is a delusional relationship, and a destructive one at that. To worsen matters, diets heavy in meat and dairy have been linked to erectile dysfunction. Now that’s not too manly. What is manly, is becoming the hero who considers the personal and global implications of raising and consuming animals for food, and who acts to do something about it.

Allan Benton of Smokey Moutain Country Hams (in his interview with Esquire) lastly remarks as a punch line, ” I take my Crestor like everybody else.” Not me Allan. Not me.

Judgmental: Veggie Conquest

When I was asked to be a judge for the first Veggie Conquest showdown in NYC on August 22nd, I had visions of myself as a TV judge like Judge Judy or Gordon Ramsey – handing out brash words of wisdom and catchy, yet condemning spitballs of criticism. “Don’t feed me mushy pasta and tell me it’s al dente,” I may accuse. Or “If you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen!”  There may also be moments where the audience believes I am going to rip someone a new one – but then after a dramatic pause I say, “This…is…the best dish here.” O, to dream. And that is why you need to enter this competition. Because you know you can make the best dish there. I know it too. So do it. The SECRET INGREDIENT will be revealed a week before the competition!

Meet the Judges for Challenge #1

• Lifestyle expert, The Discerning Brute, Joshua Katcher
• CIA-trained food stylist, Brian Preston-Campbell
• Author and entrepreneur: Lunbox Bruch’s Kathy Patalsky

On food competition shows like Top Chef and Iron Chef, the food is so often an obnoxious cliché. Foie Gras. Lamb. Caviar. Bacon. I mean bring a book, people. How many times can you showcase diseased liver, a cuteness-icon, fish periods, and the ass of an animal that’s smarter than your dog before it gets boring?

I am so excited that there is finally a vegan food competition! I hope you will all buy your tickets for August 22nd, and  come join me in Chelsea for this landmark event as a chef or a taster. See you there!

Challenge #1
Amateur Cooking Competition
Aug. 22, 2009
Chelsea, Manhattan

Buy tickets here

WHISTLE WHILE YOU WORK: Deconstructed Curry vs. Now Now Every Children

by featured contributor, Troy Farmer

.
Some things in life need to be torn down and rebuilt to truly reach their most revered state. Sometimes you have to break something into its most basic parts, examine those parts, and then throw everything you thought you knew before out the window, simplifying and revising the whole’s place in the world. Such is the case with the Minneapolis band, Now Now Every Children. The sounds they produce come from the most conventional of sources—guitar, keyboard, drums, voice—but it’s been stripped of its form and any gaudy pretense and built into something more raw, basic, and beautifully simple that does what music is supposed to do: Make a visceral connection with its listener and move them.

At its core, Now Now Every Children is the duo of singer/guitarist/keyboardist, Cacie Dalanger and drummer/multi-instrumentalist, Brad Hale—two now barely twenty-somethings who started writing songs together after marching band practice in high school. This is one of those handy facts that people writing an article on the band or interviewing absolutely love to bring up, so I won’t pretend to be an exception. That said, listening to their songs with that keen bit of knowledge, you can definitely hear a little bit of the marching band influence in the drumming—less in a beginning of Destiny’s Child’s Lose My Breath kind of way, more in that it seems to have fostered a less traditional way of playing. Indeed, Hale lets his drums take the spotlight that would usually be reserved for guitars or another tonal instrument rather than just providing a backbone for the band’s songs. His syncopation and diversion from the run-of-the-mill, 4/4, gotta-get-the-song-to-the-end rock drumming is a welcome change and gives NNEC’s songs a unique vibrancy and life.

The other facet of the duo’s music that gives it an irresistibly enjoyable quality is Dalanger’s voice. Husky, low, and brooding, it seems completely disconnected from her diminutive body and young age. On top of that, she sings with a slight but strange almost-accent that further separates the songs from the usual. The overall result, when built into structures dressed with some sparse, well-cultivated keyboards and guitars, is an interesting, wholly-enjoyable collection of songs that pull you towards them in an often melancholy manner.

Dalanger and Hale followed up the release of their first two EPs last December with their debut full-length, Cars, on local indie superstar label Afternoon Records (http://www.afternoonrecords.com/news.php). The title track is one of the more upbeat tracks and likely the one that will make you fall in love with the band. Sleep Through Summer keeps the beat up, steadily building on meandering keyboards and chunky, shoe-gazey guitars to a lovely wall of noise finale. Have You Tried roots itself in Dalanger’s voice and a gentle, slow organ line, showcasing the group’s ability to rely on simple, stripped-down sound. First two tracks, courtesy of Afternoon Records, third via Bradley’s Almanac, a great Boston-based music blog (http://www.bradleysalmanac.com/).
.

.

Cars:

Sleep Through Summer

Have You Tried

You can purchase Now Now Every Children’s LP and earlier EP’s via Afternoon Records’ site – http://www.afternoonrecords.com/nownoweverychildren.html

To pair with NNEC and the theme of stripping things down to the most bare part to make something new, we have for you a Deconstructed Curry that’s based on the premise that, in between all these rainy, unseasonably cool days, when it actually does feel like summer outside for a split second and we get to grill out, sometimes we want a little more than your basic veggie burgers, tofu pups, and kabobs. So the idea is to create a dish that makes good use of the grill to keep the heat outdoors and away from the kitchen, bases itself in the taste of traditional Thai curries, but attempts to avoid being overly heavy so we can enjoy it without collapsing in a sweaty heap at the end of the meal. Sorry. You likely don’t want to read ‘sweaty heap’ when considering food and the like.

Most of the work for this will be done in prepping the curry paste, which is based on a Massaman curry, a curry that’s Muslim in origin and features warm, sweet spices and rich coconut milk. It’s actually easy enough to make, but it employs a bevy of somewhat obscure spices and ingredients. Most of them should be easy enough to find at your local Asian market. If you’re in New York, I highly recommend a trip to Kalustyan’s on Lex in Manhattan (http://www.kalustyans.com/). They specialize in Indian and South Asian spices and, really, even if you already have everything to make the curry, it’s worth a visit just to be blown away by the sheer number of spices they have there. That place is amazing. And yes, you could always do this on the quick with a can on vegetarian curry paste (watch out for shrimp paste in some brands).

WHAT YOU’LL NEED:

For the curry.
• 1 tbsp fresh Coriander
• 1/2 tbsp fresh Black Cumin (not ground, regular fresh cumin will work too)
• 1 tbsp White Peppercorns
• 2 stalks Lemongrass with the rough outer layers removed, bottom 1/4 inch cut off, divided and thinly-sliced, employing only the tender, fragrant parts
• 6 cloves Garlic, peeled
• 2 large Vidalia Onions, peeled and sliced (can substitute any large sweet onion or an equal amount of shallots)
• 7 dried Red Chilies, sliced in half and soaked in warm water for at least 15 minutes (remove seeds for a less spicy curry, keep them in for a spicier one)
• 1 tbsp Kelp Granules (finely chopped nori sushi wrappers will work too)
• 1 tsp fresh Cardamom Seeds
• 1/2 tsp freshly-grated Nutmeg (already ground works, but fresh nutmeg, in general, is pretty great stuff, so it’s recommended)
• 1/2 tsp ground fresh Cinnamon (again, recommended but can be substituted with pre-ground)
• 1 Bay Leaf
• 5 Cloves
• 2 Kaffir Lime Leaves or (these can be hard to find, but some markets have them in the frozen section, if you can’t find them and see fresh Ngo Om leaves, these Vietnamese leaves can be substituted with the peel form 1/2 lime)
• possibly 2-4 tbsp Vegetable Broth or Water to help blending
• 1 can (14 oz) Coconut Milk

For the rest of the meal:
• 1 large Vidalia Onion, peeled and quartered
• 2-3 large Yukon Gold Potatoes, unpeeled and cut into chunks that will be small enough to eat but large enough that they don’t fall through your grill
• 3/4 lb Green Beans, trimmed
• 2 blocks of Tofu, cut into large triangles or squares
• 5 leaves Basil
• 1/2 package (8 oz) of linguine-size Rice Noodles (size M)
• 2 cups Vegetable Broth

DIRECTIONS:

1. First, the paste. Begin by soaking the chilies.
2. Next, take the coriander, cumin, and white peppercorns and toasting them in a heavy skillet for about 7 minutes, getting them fragrant and lightly browned, but not at all burnt.
3. While that’s going on, prep the rest of the ingredients as noted above.
4. Once that’s done, add everything to a blender or food processor and blend and mix until you have a smooth, uniform paste. I like to try to rely on as few appliances as possible in the kitchen, so I do this in a blender, which usually means adding all the ingredients except for the onion, which I only add a little bit of so that the whole thing doesn’t overflow. It also means using a little broth and a whole lot of mixing to get a good consistency.
5. Once that’s done, set the paste aside in the fridge to chill. Not that this is really going to make a lot of curry paste, so feel free to either plan other meals around it or halve the recipe.
6. Now use the basil leaves to rub down the pieces of tofu and then plate and cover them with the basil to get that herb’s essence.
7. Next, microwave or steam the potatoes for 4-7 minutes to the point that they’re less raw, a little tender. They’re the ones you’ll need to watch on the grill to make sure they’re completely done. Or you can just put them on the grill way, way earlier. I like to then use an oil pump mister to get a touch of olive oil on the onions, potatoes, green beans, and tofu and then salt them, but that’s totally optional.
8. Now get grilling! I usually start with the potatoes, keeping them over the high heat and turning them often. After about 5 minutes on the grill, the onion quarters should start to fall apart. When they do, gently roll the layers out onto the grill so more of the onion is making contact with it. The tofu can also go over high heat, just watching to make sure they don’t burn and turning the pieces once to crisp. The green beans need the least amount of heat and can go on last, when you’re about 5-10 minutes from plating. I keep them on a sheet of aluminum when I grill them so they don’t just fall into the flames.
9. The coconut milk can be put in a small to medium cast iron skillet and put right on the grill, not over too much heat, so that it begins to boil and condense. I like to keep mine on the warming rack of the grill the whole time, bringing it down to the main grill once I can watch it and want it to start thickening up.
10. While you’ve got everything grilling, you can add anywhere from 4-8 tablespoons of your curry paste to the skillet, depending on how you like your spice to milky ratio, stirring it in and letting it continue to thicken but not burn.
11. Back in the kitchen, while everything’s grilling, you can start to cook the noodles according to the package directions, keeping them just a bit al dente.
12. Drain them and add them to a lightly-oiled heavy skillet on medium heat. Stir the noodles to keep them from sticking and, after 2 minutes, add the 2 cups of broth and 1-2 tablespoons of the curry paste from the fridge, depending on how flavorful you want the noodles on their own. Cook for another minute, stirring constantly, and remove from heat, covering them until you’re ready to serve.
13. Once everything’s ready on the grill, plate the noodles, bring ‘em on outside, and top them with the vegetables and tofu.
14. Now take a serving spoon and dress with as much curry sauce as you like straight from the grill. You’re ready to eat! Feel free to visit your nice, cool kitchen for naps, card games and the like.

Until next time, here’s wishing you a delightfully deconstructed summer!

——-

Learn more about contriuter, Troy Farmer!

Leather Jacket: The Rebel Icon That Lost Its Gall

by Joshua Katcher

Since the first Harley Davidson Motorcycle Jacket appeared in the United States in 1919, there might not be a symbol that resonates more clearly in almost every subculture than the leather jacket. From rock stars, punks, bikers, to hipsters, fashionistas, greasers, goths, metal-heads, and even the not-so-subcultured like military aviators and the police – the leather jacket has largely defined ‘cool’ since the word cool was made to mean something new by jazz legend, Lester Young, in 1933.  In addition, many fashion experts regard leather as having unsurpassed sex-appeal – so much that it has one of the most popular fetish followings. Originally made for its functionality of durability and protective properties, it has come to suggest masculinity, and strength – and more recently as high-end designers cash in our desires to look cool and strong, wealth.

Sid Vicious’ suicide note instructed: “Bury me in my leather jacket…” Images of James Dean, Elvis, Marlon Brando, The Ramones, The Sex Pistols, Michael Jackson, The Fonz, Cathy Gale, Indiana Jones, and even the Black Panthers and the Russian Bolsheviks come to mind when we think of leather jackets.  Hollywood helped launch the leather jacket as a symbol of intimidation and rebelliousness early on with Jimmy Stewart and John Wayne in Leather Bomber Jackets, and films like The Wild One, Easy Rider, Grease and Mad Max .

What is a leather jacket? Well, to be simple, it’s the preserved skin-organ of an animal, torn from its body, treated with chemicals, dyed, and cut up into pieces to be used as a “fabric”.  Like all flesh, without the toxic tanning process, leather would rot and decompose. Horses, goats, cows, calves, lamb, sheep, pigs and “exotic” animals like crocodiles, ostrich, and many kinds of snakes are all used for their skins. Other species are hunted and killed specifically for their skins, including zebras, bison, water buffaloes, boars, kangaroos, elephants, eels, sharks, dolphins, seals, walruses, frogs, turtles, and lizards. Dairy cows are also turned into leather once they are “spent” and their calves become expensive calfskin once slaughtered for veal. According to the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the global leather industry slaughters more that a billion animals and tans their skins each year, globally.

tannery pollution in Bangladesh

The tanning is especially problematic. If a billion animals are killed for their skins per year, you do the math on how many gallons of toxic chemicals are used to turn that into leather jackets. Communities surrounding tanneries in India, Kentucky, and Sweden report high instances of leukemia and cancer, and the chemicals used to tan leather, including heavy metals like chromium, find their way into water supplies and river systems. Animals on factory farms in the U.S. produce 130 times as much excrement as the entire human population, without the benefit of waste treatment plants. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has even acknowledged that livestock pollution is the greatest threat to our waterways. Turning skin into leather also requires mineral salts, formaldehyde, coal-tar derivatives, and various oils, dyes, and finishes, some of them cyanide-based.

Eco-friendly leather is a myth and a travesty. Based simply on the amount of resources it takes to raise animals – from feed crops, pastureland, water, and fossil fuels, to the record-breaking amounts of greenhouse gasses emitted by cattle (livestock production is the #1 cause of greenouse gas emissions), even if, at the very final stage of this environmentally devastating process, a “vegetable-based” tanning process is used, it does not erase the colossal leather boot-print that raising livestock has on ecosystems . What also becomes clear is the myth that synthetics are environmentally inferior to so-called “natural” materials like leather.

Many people see leather as by-product of the meat and dairy industry, and justify wearing it with the rationalization “ The animal is dead already, so we may as well make use of the skin”. But would the animal be dead if there weren’t a demand for it’s flesh and skin in the first place? According to the USDA,  the skin of the animal represents “the most economically important byproduct of the meat packing industry.” So it isn’t just someone making use of scraps – it is a profitable industry in itself.

It’s clear that the leather jacket is a force to be reckoned with, but as our relationships to animals and ecosystems evolve, what does the leather jacket really mean, now? It all boils down to power – like Keanu Reeves in the Matrix, the leather trench represents his potentially intimidating and powerful appearance. Much like the meaning of fur, which has come to represent arrogant indifference towards animals, leather is headed down that same path, towards being a symbol of ignorance and indifference.

“The image of leather no longer defines outcasts, rebels, and counter-culture; instead, it is the epitome of mainstream, problematic relationships with ecosystems and violent and exploitative relationships with animals.”

The gorgeous illusions spun by the Goliath fashion industry are, indeed, spellbinding. And it’s no wonder the leather industry, with its orthodox relationship to the oldest, largest and most powerful fashion houses, has seen such consistent success. We hear writers, journalists and experts avow the nature of leather – how this “material” molds to our shape, breathes, and can withstand extreme punishment. But, it is not a “material” per se (any more than the Jewish hair used to stuff mattresses and pillows from the Nazi death-camps was a “material”). It was someone’s very skin. How can anyone be taken seriously as a compassionate, conscientious, and ecologically responsible individual, while boasting such a powerful symbol of both ecological devastation and animal suffering?

We know better. This isn’t a leap of faith – the evidence is right there in front of us. Not only are there countless documented cases of animals being boiled and dismembered alive, but in India, one of the largest leather exporters, the cows have their tails broken and chili-peppers rubbed in their eyes to keep them moving on their exhaustive journey outside the boarders of India where they can legally be killed specifically for their skins. Snakes and lizards may be skinned alive because of the belief that live flaying makes leather more supple. Kangaroos are slaughtered by the millions every year; their skins are considered prime material for soccer shoes. The conditions and treatment these animals face are horrifying.

Losing its gall. The image of leather no longer defines outcasts, rebels, and counter-culture; instead, it is the epitome of mainstream, problematic realtionships with ecosystems and violent and exploitative relationships with animals. It is woefully ordinary, and painfully tired. When you wear leather, you are no longer saying “I am powerful, individual, and cool“, you are saying “I am environmentally irresponsible and I hate animals“.

Végétalien à Paris

One stop on my European travels was a little city called Paris. Ever heard of it? We found a little health food store that had some amazing vegan cheeses and spreads. Le Sojami is a french company that makes some ridiculously good herb cream cheese and veg pate. PURAL makes one of the best vegan cheddars I’ve tasted. Carlie and I had a picnic under the Eiffel Tower and made warm baguettes with fresh fig and three cheeses! “Get out of town,” you might be saying to yourself… well I did! I went to France and it was great!

Rory Freedman and I ate at a handsome little veg place called Le Potager Du Marais (mostly vegan) and enjoyed a delicious, traditional French meal with a super-rich chocolate mousse dessert. See the menu below for a descripion of what we ate. We were so thrilled to be eating French food, as oposed to just typical vegan food. One of the many things I loved about Europe is that the sidewalk cafes and bars are all set up to face the street, which makes people-watching so much easier.

Another spot we hit up was La Victoire Supreme Du Coeur. This was fine dining at its best, and if you go to Paris, this is a must. It is totally vegetarian with many vegan options.

In addition to eating out, we also cooked a few meals! I dumpster-dove those gorgeous sunflowers, and we bought produce at little markets in the neighbohood to enjoy with a breakfast of multi-grain banana pancakes that I made from scratch. For dinner, Joelle and Carlie made pan-fried brussels sprout-cakes, roasted chickpeas, and herb-polenta with gravy.

Finally, we went out in search of dancing partners, bars, and booze.